The great Australian writer, Rodney Hall, still writes longhand at his standing desk in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
Now 90, he\u2019s the author of 14 novels, poetry and photography books as well as biographies.<\/p>\n
This week entrepreneur and investor Yaniv Bernstein announced swapping AI for the pen<\/a>, \u00a0renouncing technology on the verge on inevitable ubiquity.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter twelve months of evangelizing AI-assisted development, I have a confession: I\u2019ve been wrong. Not partially wrong, not \u201cit depends\u201d wrong. Fundamentally wrong. Yesterday I uninstalled every AI coding tool I had,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n The freshly minted AI apostate\u2019s screed struck a nerve, with his LinkedIn post<\/a> garnering 40,000 impressions and plenty of support.<\/p>\n It was the best kind of April Fools prank \u2013 one so many of us wished was true. He even used AI to write it. <\/p>\n \tGet the best of Startup Daily straight to your inbox<\/p>\n \n Want to know the latest in startup news? Subscribe to our daily news and analysis coverage on what\u2019s happening to ANZ startups, investors and the broader ecosystem. And best of all, it’s FREE! <\/p>\n By continuing, you agree to our\u00a0Terms & Conditions<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n And if you look carefully down the side of the post, you\u2019ll spot the acrostic spelling that hints at the truth. <\/p>\n Nonetheless, the outspoken Bernstein, cohost of The Startup Podcast<\/a> with Chris Saad, was surprised by how many experienced engineers who took it seriously, and more notably, wanted it to be true. <\/p>\n \u201cThey shared their own frustrations with AI tools and expressed relief that someone was \u2018finally saying it\u2019,\u201d he told Startup Daily, noting that he also plenty of WTF responses to his heresy. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s interesting is not that opinions differ but how deeply divided the experience has become. Two groups, both experienced, both credible, arriving at completely different conclusions about the same technology.<\/p>\n \u201cIt raises a more interesting question than whether AI is \u2018overhyped\u2019 or \u2018transformational\u2019: why are\u00a0opinions\u00a0and outcomes\u00a0so inconsistent? Is it differences in tooling, workflows, or use cases? Or something more cultural in how teams are adopting and integrating AI into their work?\u201d<\/p>\n Bernstein says he\u2019s \u201cfirmly in the camp\u201d of developers who are seeing substantial productivity gains from and treat it as a transformative tool, as cofounder of Vera, the AI app<\/a> for sandwich generation adults needing advice on dealing with aging parents. <\/p>\n \u201cAt Vera, my engineering output has been genuinely 10x\u2019d by tools like Claude Code.\u00a0\u00a0The contrast between that experience and the reactions to my April Fools post is something I\u2019m keen to explore further,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery business owner in Australia is making decisions about AI adoption right now, and the people they\u2019re relying on for guidance can\u2019t agree.\u201d<\/p>\n Yaniv Bernstein will have more to say on the issue for Startup Daily in the coming days.<\/p>\n